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Space photos of the day 07/06

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Possibly the Youngest Galaxy Ever Seen, an irregular dwarf galaxy about 45 million light-years away is seen in this image from NASA.NASA/ESA/A. Schaller

Pluto's horizon spans the foreground in this artist's vision, gazing sunward across that distant and not yet explored world. Titled New Horizons, the painting also depicts Pluto's companion, Charon, as a darkened, ghostly apparition with a luminous crescent against a starry background. Beyond Charon, the diminished Sun is immersed in a flattened cloud of zodiacal dust. Dan Durda/SwRI/NASA

This artist's rendering shows a view of our own Milky Way Galaxy and its central bar as it might appear if viewed from above. An arrow indicates the location of our Sun. Astronomers have concluded for many years that our galaxy harbors a stellar bar, though its presence has been inferred indirectly. Our vantage point within the disk of the galaxy makes it difficult to accurately determine the size and shape of this bar and surrounding spiral arms. New observations by the GLIMPSE legacy team with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope indicate that the bar-shaped collection of old stars at the center of our galaxy may be longer, and at a different orientation, than previously believed.NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt/SSC

This image is from an Advance Suit Laboratory Two Wheel Extravehicular Activity Chariot Load Test in July 2008, taken at Mars Rock Yard. Bill Welch is wearing a Mark III advanced spacesuit.NASA

The Hubble Space Telescope continues to reveal various stunning and intricate treasures that reside within the nearby, intense star-forming region known as the Great Nebula in Orion. One such jewel is the bow shock around the very young star, LL Ori, featured in this Hubble Heritage image.NASA/The Hubble Heritage Team/STScI/AURA

Dr. Wernher von Braun explains the Saturn Launch System to President John F. Kennedy. NASA Deputy Administrator Robert Seamans is to the left of von Braun.NASA

Infant stars are glowing gloriously in this infrared image of the Serpens star-forming region, captured by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The reddish-pink dots are baby stars deeply embedded in the cosmic cloud of gas and dust that collapsed to create it. A dusty disk of cosmic debris, or "protoplanetary disk," that may eventually form planets, surrounds the infant stars. NASA/JPL-Caltech/UT Austin

Expedition 23 NASA Flight Engineer Tracy Caldwell Dyson of the US prepares to have her Russian Sokol suit pressure checked at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, on April 2. Caldwell Dyson and fellow Expedition 23 crewmembers Soyuz Commander Alexander Skvortsov and Flight Engineer Mikhail Kornienko of Russia launched in their Soyuz TMA-18 rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on April 2. NASA/Carla Cioffi

This is an artist's rendition of the one-million-year-old star system called UX Tau A, located approximately 450 light-years away. Observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope showed a gap in the dusty planet-forming disk swirling around the system's central Sun-like star. The gap extends from the equivalent of Mercury to Pluto in our solar system, and is sandwiched between thick inner and outer disks on either side. Astronomers suspect that the gap was carved out by one or more forming planets.NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle/SSC

An artist's impression shows NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in front of a brilliant, infrared view of the Milky Way galaxy. The mission marks the last of NASA's Great Observatories, a program that includes the Hubble Space Telescope, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory. In addition to studying many of the coldest, oldest and most dust-enshrouded objects and processes in the universe, the mission will also be an important part of NASA's Origins Program, which seeks to answer the questions: Where did we come from? Are we alone? NASA

Scientists have reported the first conclusive discovery of water vapor in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, or a planet beyond our solar system. This artist's impression shows an infrared view of a gas-giant exoplanet transiting across the face of its star. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope observed this type of system in infrared light, providing the breakthrough. The planet, HD 189733b, lies 63 light-years away in the constellation Vulpecula.ESA/C. Carreau/NASA